Stanford Takes Online Schooling To The Next Academic Level

"Last year, Stanford University computer science professor Sebastian Thrun — also known as the fellow who helped build Google's self-driving car — got together with a small group of Stanford colleagues and they impulsively decided to open their classes to the world."

Students of Online Schools Are Lagging

"The number of students in virtual schools run by educational management organizations rose sharply last year, according to a new report being published Friday, and far fewer of them are proving proficient on standardized tests compared with their peers in other privately managed charter schools and in traditional public schools."

Profits and Questions at Online Charter Schools

"Agora is one of the largest in a portfolio of similar public schools across the country run by K12. Eight other for-profit companies also run online public elementary and high schools, enrolling a large chunk of the more than 200,000 full-time cyberpupils in the United States."

Online-Course Enrollments Grow, but at a Slower Pace

"The Sloan Consortium reports that as substantial as recent growth has been, this year's enrollment rise of 2 percent paled beside last year's reported rate of 21 percent."

College Presidents Are Bullish on Online Education but Face Skeptical Public

"Delivering courses in cyberclassrooms has gained broad acceptance among top college leaders, but the general public is far less convinced of online education's quality, according to new survey data released this week by the Pew Research Center, in association with The Chronicle."

Community-College Students Perform Worse Online Than Face to Face

"Among students who took courses online, those with the most Web-based credits were least likely to graduate or transfer to a four-year institution, a study found."

A College Education for All, Free and Online

"To date, UoPeople has enrolled just over 1,000 students in more than 115 countries. Reshef says he believes that the very act of putting students from different cultures in close collaboration is a step toward peace. He believes the university will grow to 10,000 students in five years. At that point, he says, it will be financially sustainable."

Why Are So Many Students Still Failing Online?

"Not all students should take online courses, and our collective failure to recognize that explains their high failure rate."

Apps Make College Easier to Access

"No time for class? Pull out your iPhone. A small but growing cadre of online universities is developing mobile apps to help students pursue their studies whenever and wherever they want."

Distance Education Teaching and Burnout

"Online faculty burnout may have more to do with a professor's personality than with the medium itself."

Online Degrees Come of Age in Asia

"Open universities, or institutions that specialize in distance education, have long been part of Asia’s higher education landscape, but the number has grown rapidly in recent years, especially in China and India. . ."

Speaking Up in Class, Silently, via Social Media

"A small but growing cadre of educators is trying to exploit Twitter-like technology to enhance classroom discussion and get students to shed inhibitions about voicing opinions."

The Rise of Teaching Machines

"Adaptive learning, the hot new concept in online education, is getting ready for its close-up at several colleges."

More Pupils Are Learning Online, Fueling Debate on Quality

"Nationwide, an estimated 1.03 million students at the K-12 level took an online course in 2007-8, up 47 percent from two years earlier, according to the Sloan Consortium, an advocacy group for online education. About 200,000 students attend online schools full time, often charter schools that appeal to home-schooling families, according to another report."

Snow Days Virtually Eliminated with Web Tools

"Despite winter storms that forced schools and colleges across the nation to cancel classes, tech-savvy educators are turning to Facebook, podcasts and other Web tools to keep students on track."

Enrollment in Online Courses Increases at the Highest Rate Ever

"Growth from the fall of 2008 to the fall of 2009 was 21 percent, compared with 17 percent the previous year, says a new report from the Sloan Consortium."

Analysis of Cheating in Online and Face-to-Face Courses

"So the results of a new meta-study on cheating, published in this fall’s edition of the Journal of Distance Learning Administration, might come as no surprise: Online courses that rely heavily on unproctored, multiple-choice exams are at greater risk of being cheated on than similar face-to-face courses, the study concluded."

Slide Show: The 10 Largest Online Schools

"The popularity of online education has exploded in recent years."

Preventing Online Dropouts: Does Anything Work?

"Regardless of what professors do to engage online students, they can’t seem to prevent them from dropping out, a new study suggests. Other experts disagree."

South Korean Colleges Aim to Prosper in Worldwide Online Education

"So Hanyang has begun a new strategy: to look beyond its borders to attract more students from around the globe. The country exports flat-screen TVs and cars, so why not export high-tech education as well?"